It all started couple of months back, on a fine sunny morning i read a mail with a subject Career Opportunities @ Google at first thought it was a spam mail, but then to my astonishment and delightment it wasn’t... then the mail read :

Hi Hemanth,

I'm writing to introduce myself and inquire about your interest in confidentially exploring opportunities with Google. Please let me know if you have a few minutes to discuss.

I support a team called the Google.com/Site Reliability Engineering and we are currently looking for different types of engineers to help support some of the current and upcoming exciting projects.
Ideally we are seeking technical generalists with fluency in coding/scripting, fundamental knowledge in systems administration, network administration and strong analytical and troubleshooting skills.

This team is hiring in San Francisco, Santa Monica, Pittsburgh, Kirkland, Seattle, Lenoir NC, Las Vegas, New York as well as Dublin, London, Zurich, Munich, Sydney. If this does not sound like the best fit for you, there are several other teams hiring as well.

In the event that you're happily employed, but know of any engineers of your quality who may be on the market, please don't hesitate to pass along my contact information.

Thank you in advance for your consideration! I look forward to your reply.

I could not believe my eyes! That i had received a mail from GOOGLE! To be frank, I had not applied to Google in any of their portals and was extremely excited and replied to the mail saying,I was interested and had attached my resume with the mail (Not that Google wanted my resume, as they would know be better than me ;) )

I got a quick response for my mail saying :

Hi Hemanth,

Thank you for your interest in Google! I support a team called the Google.com/Site Reliability Engineering and we are currently looking for different types of engineer to help support some of the current and upcoming exciting projects.

What I have in mind for you is a unique hybrid position. As a Google.com engineer, you wear many different hats and and are expected to be a jack-of-all-trades. It calls for solid knowledge in Unix/Linux Systems, Scripting/Coding and Networking and/or Databases. We put the best and brightest on this mission-critical team to solve large scale, highly complex problems related to Google's customer-facing sites and internal services.

I'd love to have a brief conversation to gauge your interest and tell you more about the team. If you could provide me with a few time slots that would work for your schedule over the next few business days, I will confirm one with you.

So all excited Hemanth, gave few time slots and dates where he would be free and would be easy to talk. ( Talking to one about yourself is the toughest thing to do! NO?).

CALL 0
So the clock ticked 22:45 hrs i was about to sleep, but wanted to surf some reddit, my cell rung time was exactly 23:00hrs! As soon as i noticed it was an international call ( Call was from California ) plugged in my head phone and said hello, I heard a charming voice a lady from the Google recruitment team,
she got to know more about me and explained me about how working at Google would be and what they are expecting from a candidate.

CALL 1
This was about what i had learnt so far and what would be covered in the up coming interviews. Was requested to prepare on basic of whatever i had studied in my bachelors as a computer science grad.

CALL 2
Around 23:15hrs about a week after CALL 1, This call had question that would gauge me and suggest me the right stream in Google that would suite my true nature. Call was all about the basic of Computer programming, Networking, GNU/Linux and indeed algorithms.
Sorry can't disclose the questions, after this round I got a mail saying that i had cleared this round and need to get ready for other rounds.

CALL 3
Before the CALL 3 really happened, I had to give list of time slots with in a given range, that was like 23:30 to 04:00 hrs [IST] yes time seemed bit odd, but that is how they like it and more over the Engineer who was supposed to talk my interview was in US, so had no other options. It's hard to focus at odd hours especially when you had a long day at work, but that is not the whole point, if there is real love in technology time must not matter!

This call was very interesting, it also included Computer programming, Networking, GNU/Linux and a shared Google document where i had to code on a given problem [ Can't share more details here too! ]

Call ended with me saying, "I could not be at my best, really don't know why! May the odd time or over excitement", other end the Google engineer said, i can understand no issue, if any more questions please contact the recruitment team.

So Call 3 was it i knew i had screwed up, could have done much better! After few more days got a mail that my resume will be in there repo if there are more jobs that are apt for me they will get back.

Even though i knew the answers to all of them, was not able to delivery it in the right manner and with the same level of confidence, which i would have done with any other company!

RETROSPECTION

I'm must say that disappointment is indeed echoing in me, but must be happy as Google Getting 1300 Resumes A Day chose me, from one of the open source sites where i had done my contributions! Indeed has boosted my confidence!

Lesson Learnt

<

ul>

With this i thank Google for giving me such a great opportunity! No matter what reasons i may list now, the past is past and lost is lost.

In life, we need to face failures to realize the taste of success…they are like injections; they pain but it's a good pain!! So if it does not end well, then there is more to come!